Special Exhibitions
Antioch Exhibition
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Special Exhibitions |
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Antioch Exhibition |
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The Antioch Mosaics The Persian kings were so obsessed by Antioch that often after invasions of the city, they would carry away artisans, mosaicists and metalworkers, who would then be charged with decorating the palaces in Persian cities...Mosaic pavements like those in the exhibition covered a vast number of floors in public and private buildings throughout the Roman Empire. Mosaics are architectural surface decoration created by setting small pieces of differently colored stone, glass, or other material into a bed of mortar. During the Roman and Byzantine periods these pieces were roughly cubic in shape and were known by the term tesserae. The discovery of some 300 mosaic pavements in and around Antioch during the excavations of 1932-39 was a landmark event in the study of floor mosaics. While many of these floor mosaics were found in public buildings such as baths and churches, for the most part they came from private houses in Antioch and its surrounding area, the nearby lush garden suburb of Daphne, and the port city of Seleucia Pieria. The wealth of floor mosaics was wholly unexpected, and their contents opened a new chapter on our knowledge of private life and domestic art in the Roman east. Mosaic Workshops Mosaic Materials Page 2 of 5 | On the next page: Themes in the Exhibition |
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